Inside The Locker Room: Ben Roethlisberger

How does the knee feel?It feels great. I saw Dr. (Jim) Bradley this morning, and he was pleasantly surprised with the range of motion and where we are at, and the swelling. So, it feels great. I’ve been off crutches for a couple of days now. I’m moving around good. I think I could play Sunday if I had to.

Is the discomfort gone?It’s still too early to tell. According to Dr. Bradley the surgery went really well. My knee is in great shape. They took care of the little problem. It had been bothering me a little last year, and we decided now is the time to take care of it.

Re: More cleanup than repair:Absolutely. There was no repair. It was just clean up.

Re: Same cleanup on the other knee:The same knee. There were some reports but it was the same knee. So it was a very similar thing.

Re: Looked fine during OTAs and hoping it just went away:That’s kind of what we were doing. People said why not earlier. Well, we wanted to try to see if we could manage. I’d come in on Tuesday to practice and it would feel good, and by Thursday, it was almost like a tire was slowly losing air. It kind of hurt me on Thursday. We figured it was time to get it done. Doctors agreed and said let’s do it now.

What will you do this week?Watch. I’ll ride the bike a lot. That’s pretty much it. I will be here to support the quarterbacks, offense and coaches. I’ll do whatever I can do just to add moral support.

Are you broken up that you will miss minicamp?It’s killing me, actually. It tears me up [Laughs].

Did you get enough work in during the last couple of weeks?Yeah, I was here for every practice. I felt good. Honestly, I don’t ever like to miss practice but I’ll be ready for training camp.

Re: Knee hyperextension in 2005 caused you to miss games:Gosh, that’s a long time ago. I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what was going on. I think it was just general wear and tear. It’s my right leg, so it’s my plant leg. Every time I drop back I put a lot of pressure on my leg. I think that’s probably – a lot of quarterbacks’ right knees are a little banged up and beat up. Like I said, it [the surgery] was good. I’m glad we got it done. Doctor Bradley was really pleasantly surprised how it went.

Do you expect to go day one in training camp?Absolutely. I honestly think I could go next week if I had to.

Re: What this offense can do:I’ve been thinking about it for a while. We are excited. I like what we’ve seen so far. The last couple weeks of OTAs, granted, they were in shorts and t-shirts. I am really pleased with the offensive line and some of these young guys at wide receiver, and the veterans are stepping up and doing some good things. We will see what happens when we get some pads on.

Re: Suggestions to Todd Haley:It’s more than just me. I think it’s everybody. Just the simple fact that he came to me and asked what I thought about it, changing the names of things to kind of make more sense to all of us. Usually, I talk to a lot of the guys. I ask the tight ends and wide receivers, “Does this hit you? Does it make sense to you if we call it this?” If it doesn’t, then we will go try to change it. We want everything, when it’s on the fly, to make as much sense as possible.

What about plays? Will you go deep more often?I don’t know. We are going to have to wait to see what happens in game one. I don’t want to unveil any secrets yet.

Do you have the weapons to do that?Absolutely. I got a new wheel. I can go deep if I need to.

Re: Terminology was something that needed work:Certain things. When Todd came in, it was the exact same play that we had the past couple of years but it was called something completely different. It was just hard for us to make sense of something completely new. So we’ve gone back to what is familiar to a lot of guys. Some things we’ve kept the same. But we’ve moved some terminology around just to make it simpler for the young guys and even for some of us old guys.

Re: Helping other QBs:I’m going to do whatever I can to help. I was there for the walk-thru and I will be out there for practice. If they have questions, I will be glad to jump in and help. If I see something, I will put my coaching hat on for a couple of days.

Re: Intensity of minicamp:I am sure it will go up. I am sure the rookies don’t quite know what is about to happen yet. There are still no pads on, so it’s not quite to the next level of training camp but it definitely will pick up a little bit. It will be interesting to see some of these rookies’ heads to start spinning a little more.